Hello,
I know what I am trying to do is not really the recommended approach to using OpenWrt but I am experimenting and learning a lot of things at the same time with my old Archer C7 V2.
Anyway, I have decided to build the linux kernel with all the modules from the actual kernel tree, leaving out most of the .ko files used by OpenWrt and I find that pretty much everything works except for the ath10k chip. I have been digging for hours trying to figure out why I can't ever get hostapd to accept any channel configuration. I seem to always end up with issues like:
Fri Sep 28 23:27:28 2018 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: interface state ACS->HT_SCAN
Fri Sep 28 23:27:28 2018 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: interface state HT_SCAN->[ 3274.852958] device wlan1 left promiscuous mode
DFS
Fri Sep 28 [ 3274.857760] br-lan: port 2(wlan1) entered disabled state
23:27:28 2018 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: DFS-CAC-START freq=5260 chan=52 sec_chan=1, width=0, seg0=54, seg1=0, cac_time=0s
Fri Sep 28 23:27:28 2018 daemon.err hostapd: DFS start_dfs_cac() failed, -1
Fri Sep 28 23:27:28 2018 daemon.err hostapd: Interface initialization failed
I have tried picking channels manually in the approved range but to no avail...
root@OpenWrt:/tmp# iw reg get
global
country 00: DFS-UNSET
(2402 - 2472 @ 40), (6, 20), (N/A)
(2457 - 2482 @ 20), (6, 20), (N/A), AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
(2474 - 2494 @ 20), (6, 20), (N/A), NO-OFDM, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5170 - 5250 @ 80), (6, 20), (N/A), AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5250 - 5330 @ 80), (6, 20), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5490 - 5730 @ 160), (6, 20), (0 ms), DFS, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5735 - 5835 @ 80), (6, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
(57240 - 63720 @ 2160), (N/A, 0), (N/A)
That leads to errors like:
Fri Sep 28 23:23:45 2018 daemon.warn hostapd: wlan1: IEEE 802.11 Configured channel (34) not found from the channel list of current moda
Fri Sep 28 23:23:45 2018 daemon.warn hostapd: wlan1: IEEE 802.11 Hardware does not support configured channel
Fri Sep 28 23:23:45 2018 daemon.err hostapd: Could not select hw_mode and channel. (-3)
I guess my question at this point is, what does the backport ath10k driver do that the regular kernel version doesn't do? Where is the difference? Or is it just something else I'm not understanding?
Thank you,
Francois